The Amazing Shrinking Woman

Today I had a very strange eating day. I drank tea in the morning, ate grits for lunch, a peanut butter slug for a snack, and had a Chinese soup feast for supper.

None of it was very good. First, the tea was bitter because I let it steep too long; secondly I didn’t have any butter for the grits, and finally my Chinese soup feast was disappointing. I’m not sure why I didn’t enjoy the soup very much, but part of it has to be the fact that the wontons are filled with a mystery meat, and as I was about to bite into the first one, I wondered what meat it was. Pork? Beef? Then my mind flashed back to a conversation with my mother several days ago in which she told me that some lady she works with adopted a Korean baby, and Koreans really do eat dogs, but only a certain dark-meat kind, and only in the winter. (Shiver fest. I know.) So from then on, I’d look apologetically to my dog before each bite. I felt like I was eating MSG-soaked dog-meat dumplings that were floating in a cesspool of polluted sea water. I actually ended up spitting out most of the (dog?) meat and only ate the noodle part.

But that’s not important. What is important is that I’m walking tomorrow!

I’m going to get up early and hit the freezing cold road. Walking is very important, and the dog gets antsy when she has to stay inside all day, so it’s win-win. I really want to invest in spandex sports britches, because the world doesn’t have enough fat people in spandex. Seriously I want them because I think they’ll let me walk faster. I’m sort of self-conscious of all fat jiggles as I walk. I know that most people who see me probably think, “Good for her,” but I’d rather not wonder what they’re thinking at all. Knowing that the jiggly bits aren’t jiggly will make it all more painless for me.

Walking is the best form of exercise for the following reasons.

-Anyone can do it.

-It can be sustained much easier than running. (This is important because you only burn fat when you’ve already burned the sugar in your body. In other words, your body keeps the fat for last, so you have to exercise over a longer period of time so that you can get rid of the sugar, then start melting some of that fat. Running, unless you are a distance runner or an experienced jogger, usually results in a 20 minute or so burst of energy that only burns off the sugar. In other words, endurance is where it’s at.)

-It doesn’t require special equipment.

-You can (and should) do it anywhere.

-It’s easy to find a partner because it’s such an accessible exercise.

-You can bring your pets!

If you can think of any of the other reasons that walking is so good for you, please share them with us all.